The Pope has said he fears the UN has “lost its ability to bring people together”, and has admitted he has “a huge learning curve” ahead of him when it comes to his place on the world stage.
In a wide-ranging and revealing interview to mark his 70th birthday, Pope Leo XIV told Catholic publication Crux’s senior correspondent that while he felt very comfortable with the pastoral side of his role, “the totally new aspect to this job is being thrown onto the level of world leader”.
He told Elise Ann Allen: “It’s very public, people know the phone conversations or meetings I’ve had with the heads of state of a number of different governments, countries around the world, in a time when the voice of the church has a significant role to play.
“I am learning a lot about how the Holy See has had a role in the diplomatic world for many years.”
“In theory, the United Nations should be the place where many of these issues are dealt with. Unfortunately, it seems to be generally recognised that the United Nations, at least at this moment in time, has lost its ability to bring people together on multilateral issues.”
As the first US-born pope, he also admitted to a very American problem – family differences over baseball.
“People know I’m a (Chicago) White Sox fan, but as pope, I’m a fan of all the teams.
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“Even at home, I grew up a White Sox fan, but my mother was a Cubs fan (the city’s second team), so you couldn’t be one of those fans that shut out the other side.
“We learned, even in sports, to have an open, dialogical, friendly and not angry competitive stance on things like that, because we might not have gotten dinner had we been!”
The Pope celebrated his 70th birthday by thanking God, his parents and all those who prayed for him.
He saw giant “happy birthday” banners, in English, Italian and Spanish, balloons and congratulatory signs held up by the faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square for his traditional noon blessing on Sunday.
Groups of Peruvians, including dancers in traditional attire, were also out in force, a testament to the two decades the Pope spent in Peru as a missionary and a bishop.
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In the interview, conducted by Allen for her forthcoming biography of Leo, the pope also lamented widening income gaps between the working class and CEOs, recalling the recent news that Elon Musk could be in line to become the world’s first trillionaire.
‘We’re in big trouble’
“One which I think is very significant is the continuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive.
“For example, CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving, the last figure I saw, it’s 600 times more than what average workers are receiving.
“Yesterday the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world. What does that mean and what’s that about? If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble,” he said.
But on an upbeat note, he said he believed that in spite of fears the world was becoming more polarised he had faith in people.
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“We live in times when polarisation seems to be one of the words of the day, but it’s not helping anybody. Or if it’s helping anyone, it’s very few, when everyone else is suffering. So to continue to raise those questions, I think, is important.
“We have to continue to remind ourselves of the potential that humanity has to overcome the violence and the hatred that is just dividing us more and more.”
